Convergence
by Delwin
Summary: A brief intersection of paths near the DMZ. Pre-Voyager. Paris, Torres, Bendera, and a glimpse of Chakotay...Now Complete
1. Stardate 45666

Author's Note: Another one written mostly because I wanted to read it. It ended up surprising me with where it went – or actually where it started.

Attempts to keep this story in continuity with the rest of the _Star Trek_ universe proved difficult; the events surrounding the creation of the DMZ and the formation of the Maquis were not as consistent as I would have liked and, at times, seemed almost contradictory. In reconstructing the history presented here, preference was given to dates and events mentioned in _Voyager_ episodes (particularly "Caretaker", "Non Sequitur", "Dreadnought", and "In the Flesh") over other series since this is, after all, a _Voyager_ story.

Both thanks and apologies are owed to Jeri Taylor for the bits of plot points borrowed from her novel _Pathways_ and for the large chunks ignored or overwritten. It was simply too tempting of a moment in time for my two favorite _Voyager_ characters not to try my own hand at it...

Also, thanks is due to several long time P/T writers, particularly the amazing **dalaire**, for my fascination with the character of Kurt Bendera. I couldn't resist bringing him along for the ride here.

Finally, a huge, huge thank you to** Photogirl1890** for hand-holding this from start to finish. It wouldn't exist without her encouragement and would exist is a much messier form without her sharp eye.

And, of course, I own nothing.

**Convergence**

**Stardate 45666  
**_September, 2368_

"How's the weather out there, Velik?"

He slips in behind the helm, relaxing as always into its familiarity. It has never mattered whether it is the first or the hundredth time he has folded his long frame into a particular seat, whether it's his maiden flight with a given vessel or they have a long acquaintance. The helm, any helm, is home to Tom Paris.

The small sigh issues from the co-pilot's seat; evidently, exasperation doesn't count as an emotional reaction. "As you are well aware, Lieutenant, 'weather' is an inaccurate term to be applied to extra-atmospheric conditions." Yes, the Lieutenant is aware. They have had this same conversation a dozen times. Tom has come to enjoy the ritual; the Vulcan not so much. "But the incidence of solar flares is particularly frequent today."

"That's why they sent us Tom," comes a third voice and the pilot turns to smile a welcome at the dark-haired woman just entering the shuttle through the rear hatch. She throws a grin and a wink back at him. "Lieutenant Paris here is a master at playing with fire."

Tom chuckles and turns back to the flight prep. He and Liz Perkins, Lieutenant junior-grade with about two weeks of seniority over him, have kept up a steady stream of banter since she came aboard the _Exeter_ a month or two before. It hasn't lead anywhere – and won't as long as they are in the same direct chain of command. Despite a rather well-tended reputation to the contrary, there are certain lines that Paris will not cross.

Well, actually, there are a lot of lines he won't cross, but that reputation which suggests otherwise amuses him. All part of the game. And Tom Paris, son of an Admiral and ace pilot, is an expert at playing the game.

With Liz, he is content, for now, with the flirtation. The _Exeter _is a big ship, and officers move between departments – and command chains – often.

"Is Wilkerson on her way?"

"Doctor Wilkerson commed that replication of the final batch of hyronalin was taking longer than expected and that she would arrive approximately five minutes behind our scheduled departure," the Vulcan offers in response.

Tom frowns, looking down at the readings in front of him.

Perkins leans forward from the auxiliary console where she has taken her seat. "Is that cutting it too close, Tom?"

The pilot's fingers dance over his board, making some new calculations. "Close, but not too close," he replies, still working.

Velik raises an eyebrow. "By my readings, we can expect another flare within the hour."

"If the Doc makes it down here within that five minute window, we can still make it," Tom assures them. He turns back to Liz. "And they can't wait on that hyronalin."

The other lieutenant eyes him steadily. She's been coordinating these runs for the last two weeks and indeed knows the importance of delivering the radiation medication on time. "It's your call, Tom."

The pilot nods and then turns back to his console, taking care of a little extra business.

Nine minutes later, Doctor Wilkerson arrives, and the pilot comms the deck officer for permission to depart. The quick response in the affirmative elicits another expression of impassive interest from Velik. "I would have expected Ensign Barnes to comment on our late departure."

Comment and raise a fuss. Barnes is a stickler for protocol. "Maybe he misread the flight plan?" Tom suggests with practiced innocence, eyes fixed on the panels in front of him as he guides the shuttle off the deck and out into open space. He can feel Liz's glare on the back of his head. Evidently, she doesn't buy his act. She'll be pissed at him for a while, but he knows she understands: the need to get that hyronalin to the medical facility easily outweighs nit-picky details of protocol.

Velik seems to accept his suggested explanation at face value and gives a small, "Hmm," no doubt contemplating the inherent fallibility of his non-Vulcan shipmates. Wilkerson, engrossed with securing the medical supplies, hasn't even noticed the exchange.

"Ladies and gentleman, get yourselves a good seat," Tom announces as they clear the _Exeter _and head towards the planet. "Velik tells me the weather is stormy today, and it is liable to be a bumpy ride into Caldik Prime."

* * *

Funny that everything she owns fits so easily into one bag.

Or really not funny at all.

A week's worth of clothing and undergarments, toiletries, a couple of PADDs onto which she's downloaded what course material has actually been of use. Surely in nineteen years of life she should have accumulated more. Some mementos, holo-images, something...personal.

She glances at the small mirror over the sink of her shared bunk room. She's already changed out of her cadet uniform, throwing it into the recycler. Without the tight collar, she feels freer, more able to breath.

Still, it takes her a moment to recognize the reflection staring back at her.

Her roommates are in class; she planned it that way. Given the trouble it takes to get into Starfleet Academy, it is almost absurdly easy to leave. Using her cadet PIN, she logs into the desk terminal and submits her resignation.

Ten minutes later, she walks off the idyllic campus where she once thought she would find answers and purpose. Without a backward glance, she heads for the civilian transportation center, ready to get as far away as her small store of credits will take her.


	2. The Good Fight

**The Good Fight  
**_18 months later..._

She fascinated him.

He doubted he was the only one, though she seemed spectacularly unaware of, or perhaps just utterly uninterested in, the eyes that followed her as she moved through the small ship. Her presence could hardly be called quiet, but she did little to draw attention to herself.

He wasn't even entirely sure why or how he found her so compelling. He wouldn't deny that he found her attractive, though in the odd moments when he glanced her way and found her expression unguarded he was reminded of just how young she was. How young and how unsure of herself when she was not enmeshed in circuits and machinery. Those moments stirred his deeply embedded and – despite his best efforts over the last year and a half – only lightly buried protective instincts. Not that she would be at all appreciative should those instincts fully surface; she'd likely threaten to tear his throat out at the first hint of such tendencies.

They had come aboard within days of each other, recruited from opposite ends of the region by the ex-Starfleet commander with the tactical training and experience to recognize what the creation of the DMZ would mean for the colonists whose status along the border had been tenuous since the official armistice between the Federation and the Cardassians three years before. Those colonists were and would always be at the heart of the resistance; but, for the Maquis to survive and have any hope of meeting their objectives, more than heart was needed. Knowing this, Captain Chakotay had quickly collected the pieces he needed: a Bajoran tech here, a half-Klingon engineer there. And, of course, one Thomas Eugene Paris – whose piloting skills were only matched by his ability to fuck up his own life and the lives of those around him.

– Come to think of it, given his history, the threat of bodily harm might well be the appropriate response to any overtures of friendship on his part.

_Just pilot the ship_, _Paris_. It was all that he should ask for at this point. More than he would have thought possible a month before, land-bound and yet drifting, days filled only with the attempt to drown the dreams that inevitably found him at night. Chakotay must have been more than desperate to offer to put him behind the helm of a ship again.

Pilot the ship, keep the rest of the crew at a distance with a practiced mask of disinterest and increasingly feigned drunken boorishness. He hadn't actually had a drink since coming aboard.

He was determined not to think about what they were doing. Not because he objected to the Maquis activity, but because he could not allow himself to care. So he had learned not to care, not to notice. He had become quite good at it.

Except when the _de facto _chief engineer strode onto the bridge with that odd mixture of confidence and hesitance and sat down at the engineering station next to the conn.

Yes, it was a very good thing that B'Elanna Torres never noticed his eyes lingering after her; she would no doubt happily volunteer to gouge them out.

* * *

Not for the first time, she wondered what she had gotten herself into.

She had never been the sort of child to dream about what she wanted to be when she grew up. Her attention had always been firmly fixed in the present: the mechanical puzzle in front of her, the track meet about to begin or, less pleasantly, the current battle of wills with her mother. Still, she was fairly certain that, on the odd occasions when she did ponder possible future careers, '_freedom fighter'_ had not exactly made the top of the list.

Not that '_engineer-for-hire on a third rate trade vessel which, unbeknownst to its hirelings, was smuggling goods that would attract the attention of a Cardassian Gul'_ was high on the list either. So perhaps it wasn't a question so much of what she had gotten herself into as what she had gotten herself out of. Or who had gotten her out of it.

After Chakotay and his crew's lucky timing had saved her from death or worse at the hands of the Cardassians, the Maquis captain had asked only a small favor in return: that she use her expertise to help repair essential systems for a colony in the DMZ, recently visited by Cardassian militants. It seemed a simple enough request, and it helped that, after her recent experiences, she sure as hell had no love for the Cardassians.

Needless to say, she wasn't prepared for what she found when they beamed down to the surface of Ceres III.

The smaller, younger Federation colonies tended to have a pre-manufactured feel to them – easy to assemble, low to the ground, solid structures, carefully planned streets with ideal ratios of residential to commercial buildings, sculpted landscaping – "Town-from-a-Box," a neighbor on Kessik IV with a degree in architecture from an earlier life had disdainfully called them. The streets on which they materialized could have been the central streets of Kessik.

Except for the destruction and devastation that surrounded them. The buildings were burnt out and gutted, some of the remains still smoldering. Ash lay thick on the ground.

"What happened here?" she asked, holding her voice toneless.

Chakotay grimaced. "The Cardassians decided to move up the evacuation schedule."

"Starfleet did nothing?"

"We're inside the DMZ. Their hands are tied without an okay from the politicians." His grimace deepened. "If they heard about this at all."

She felt rage, familiar, beginning to build. But she had a job to do, and she would fix what she could.

"Where are the generators?" she asked, voice tight but still controlled, focused.

Chakotay led the way, passing by what were once houses, now either reduced to piles of rubble or, for the ones still standing, converted into shelters and infirmaries. When they finally reached the generators, Torres almost sighed with relief at the sight of a problem that could be solved.

"How long will it take?" the Maquis captain asked after she had had a chance to do an initial inspection.

"Two days. Three if the dolamide reactor was hit."

"Could you use an extra set of hands?"

"If you have someone who can handle a set of tools and do what they're told."

Chakotay nodded and left her to her work. An hour later, Bendera arrived, bringing his own tool set (_good_) and an easy smile that seemed to require neither reciprocation nor conversation (_better_). By the end of the day, they were ahead of her estimated schedule.

The next morning, she arrived to find not Bendera, but Chakotay's newly acquired pilot waiting. Paris was lounging against the doorway of the small building which sheltered the colony's generators, sandy hair in disarray and expression set in bored arrogance.

"Chakotay said they had no use for a 'hot shot pilot' while sitting in orbit so I might as well come down and give you a hand."

She made no attempt to hide her displeasure. "Well I don't have much use for a _pilot_ down here either."

He shrugged. "Above my pay grade." And then he seemed to make a decision and the smallest bit of expression flitted across his face. "But I can use a hyperspanner and can even do what I'm told," and he gave a lazy smirk, "once in a while at least."

Her frown deepened, but he was there and there was work to be done. "Fine," she growled. "Let's start with the power relays."

They worked steadily for the next couple of hours, making even better progress than Torres and Bendera had the day before. B'Elanna admitted to herself – though certainly not aloud – that 'hotshot pilot' or no, Paris was a competent engineering tech and that, yes, he was able to follow directions – even barked, impatient directions – when he chose. His steady stream of wise cracks and innuendos did little to endear him to her, however, and those eyes which seemed to catch everything but reveal nothing unnerved her to no end.

Towards midday, there was a hesitant knock and two children peered into the generator room.

"Oh hell," she heard Paris mutter.

Squaring her shoulders, the older of the two, a young girl with long, dark braids down her back, stepped forward into the room, holding out a small storage container. The second child, a boy perhaps a couple years younger than she, held back in the doorway but offered a shy smile.

"We brought you some food," the girl said simply, evidently using up her small courage in those few words.

Stricken, Torres glanced at Paris and, for the first time, met his eyes. She was more than a little surprised to find discomfort there to match her own and something else. A visible shudder ran through him, and, when he turned to the girl, his expression and voice might have belonged to another man entirely.

"Thank you," he replied simply, and, squatting down to their level, he offered the children a soft smile. "But we have food from our ship, and we don't want to take what's needed here."

The boy inched forward now, curiosity clearly getting the better of him. "Your starship – do you get to fly it?" he asked in wide eyed wonder.

B'Elanna, watching the exchange, caught the pilot's hard swallow. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

The boy's eyes only widened further.

The girl, meanwhile, reached for Paris's hand. "You can take the food. We have plenty. Of food. We're farmers here." And pride was evident in her voice. "It's better than anything on ships. Everyone always says so when they visit." And then she hesitated. "Though no one has visited for a while."

_Except the Cardassians._

Torres fought down an almost irresistible urge to flee from the room. She did not want to be, could not be, drawn into this fight. But her eyes once again met the pilot's as he looked back at her and she gave the smallest nod of consent; what else could they do?

"I'm sure it is," Paris assured the girl, squeezing her hand which still held his. "Thank you for bringing it for us." Then he reached out to muss the hair of the boy whose stare of hero-worship was broken by a toothy grin, and both children skittered away, no doubt to recount their adventure to a host of little friends.

Paris looked down at the container of food left behind and dropped his head into his hands. "Fucking hell."

They worked in virtual silence for the rest of the day, trading words only when their labor demanded it. Paris's face was again tight and expressionless, and B'Elanna was aware of the very short rein that she had left on her temper. By sunset, the work was done, the generators again running at full capacity, and, with unvoiced accord, they returned to the beam-out location, happy to let Chakotay have the honor of informing the local officials of their success and the enjoyment of the gratitude to follow.

Two days later, while Torres was helping to reconfigure the engineering station on the bridge of the Maquis ship, word came: the Cardassian colonist faction had returned to Ceres and blown all their work to hell.

The curse escaped, but she did stop herself from lunging at the image of the messenger on the viewscreen. Snarling in frustration, she turned to Chakotay seated behind her.

The Maquis captain avoided her eyes, focusing instead on his counterpart on the screen. Then the realization hit: _he knew that this would happen. _

Swinging back around, her attention was caught by the pilot at the station beside her. And, for a second, she found in those usually guarded eyes a knowledge that mirrored her own and a strange kind of sympathy. Then the mask fell again, and he turned back to the helm.

There were times when having a healthy vocabulary of vulgarities in three languages was eminently useful. This was one of them. Muttering an unholy litany barely under her breath, heedless of who might hear what, she made her way off the bridge. "I'll be in engineering," she spat.

As she exited, she saw Chakotay nod silently. He knew what she knew as well.

She would stay.

* * *

In the kind of war they were fighting, anything less than extinction must be considered a win. It was an important piece of wisdom to keep in mind for a Maquis captain with a background in Starfleet tactical training. That training told him that their fight was the next step over from a lost cause; but, for the Maquis, that next step was everything.

They weren't dead yet.

They could have been, and he wondered if Starfleet had any idea how close the annoyance that was the Maquis had come to being eradicated before its presence ever came to the attention of those admirals sitting on high in San Francisco. When Chakotay had handed his resignation in to Admiral Namimbeh almost two years earlier, the Federation-Cardassian border was already a quiet fire zone. Cardassian vigilantes, with sometimes more and sometimes less tacit support from the central government, were regularly harassing the Federation colonies along the border. The inhabitants of those colonies, desperate to defend their homes and families and unable to wait on politicians to authorize Starfleet to come to their aid, had thrown together whatever resistance they could. But with limited resources or experience, the colonists were fighting a gallant but losing battle.

Two years later, diplomats had signed an anachronistic piece of paper officially sanctioning the transfer of the colonies to Cardassian control, and any hope of eventual help from Starfleet had been crushed. Those still determined to resist the forced evacuation of their homes were now outlaws in the eyes of the Federation as well as Cardassia Prime.

Moving into the Badlands had been an act of brilliant desperation. The plasma storms evened the odds at least a bit – offering shelter and a potential weapon to those who were bold enough and out of any other options. But the Cardassians were becoming bolder as well, and the Maquis needed better ships and better pilots in order to push deeper into the Badlands' treacherous sanctuary. Chakotay had begun to collect both – or, at least, the means toward both.

He looked at the communique on the PADD in his hands which set up the next step in his piecemeal strategy.

The knock on the doorway to his quarters (the actual door had stopped working weeks before) drew his attention away from the PADD, and he looked up, relaxing slightly to see Bendera standing there.

"You're worrying again, Chakotay," Bendera greeted him. "It's turning your hair gray."

"Mmph." The captain rubbed over the offending bristles cut close to his scalp. "How's our engineer?"

Bendera shrugged, moving in from the door and sitting on the edge of the bunk – the only surface available in the small space. He pitched his voice lower, though true privacy was nearly impossible on a ship about the size of an average Starfleet runabout. Chakotay's preference for open doors – even when they did work – didn't help. The Captain was a good man, and a sometimes inspired tactician, but too trusting by half in Bendera's estimation.

"Angry," Bendera answered. "The engines and the techs are getting the worst of it; probably good for the engines, not so great for the techs."

"You seem unscathed."

The younger man shrugged again. "I grew up in a big, loud family; you learn from the cradle when to let others' tempers roll off of you," his mouth quirked into a half-smile, "and when it's worth fighting back. She's just blowing off steam."

Chakotay glanced back at the PADD, avoiding his friend's eyes. "So who is she actually angry at?"

"The galaxy?" Bendera posited. And then when his commander turned back to him with an exasperated look, he answered the real question: "Not you. Or at least not much. Though she does know what you did. Seska's idea?"

The Maquis captain grunted. Mind games and manipulation were not his forte; they were however, he was beginning to suspect, the Bajoran's. They had needed Torres's engineering brilliance – desperately – and Seska had counseled that he should make the fight personal for the young woman. The strategy seemed to have been successful, at least partially. And if they didn't lose, they were winning, Chakotay reminded himself.

Bendera seemed to be considering his next comment with more than customary care. "She seems to have taken to the cause with vigor – Seska, I mean."

"She has a long history with the Cardassians," Chakotay offered tightly, making it clear by his tone that he had no desire to discuss in more detail the Bajoran's "vigor", cause-related or otherwise. "As long as we seem to be running through our new recruits, how's Paris fitting in?" He didn't bother to hide his dislike even as he asked after the man.

"He's not," Bendera replied. "And he doesn't seem to have any desire to. But he's a hell of a pilot, and he does what we hired him to do."

Chakotay sighed: 'hiring' Paris was the most blatant instance of the captain's increasing willingness to compromise his principles in order to keep the Maquis cause alive. Just the thought of the pilot brought a bitter taste to his mouth. He rubbed his palms against tired eyes. Then he looked back over at Bendera. "How would you feel about heading back to Telfas Prime?"

Bendera nodded, smiling knowingly. "I figured it wouldn't take you long to ask. With Torres, I assume?"

It was Chakotay's turn to nod. "And Paris. If she can get it off the ground, I want it safely stowed away in the Badlands until it's ready to go. You'll need Paris for that."

"Does Magda know we're coming?"

Chakotay gave what was becoming an increasingly rare grin. "She does, as does Mitya."

Bendera grinned back. "I'll be sure to give him your love."

"I'm still not sure how you managed to wiggle your way into his good graces."

"Natural charm." Bendera winked at his commander. "Also, I bought the first round."

"Well, no bar fights this time, okay? You'll need to keep a low profile with Starfleet as well as the Cardassians sniffing around now."

"Captain!" The younger man gave a look of mock indignation. "I never start bar fights." And then he grinned with toothy satisfaction: "I just like to help finish them."

* * *

_A/N - A word of thanks to **Alpha Flyer **and the epigraph from Henry Kissinger included in her "Andorian Incident": "The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose" - wisdom Chakotay very much takes to heart in this section._


	3. Telfas Prime

**Telfas Prime**

In a region known for its endlessly shifting political and geographical alignments, Telfas Prime was one of the few constants. Positioned in unincorporated space near the Bajoran-Cardassian border, it enjoyed the protection of Starfleet and the patronage of all major and minor powers in the region. The mining colony churned out ores and minerals in war and peacetime alike, the skilled and roughened men and women who pulled the wealth of the planet from its dark depths proudly and wisely keeping a distance from regional politics. At least that was the official claim.

Bendera had first visited the colony as a young teenager, accompanying his father on a trade run. His father had advised the boy that if he kept his mouth closed and his eyes open he might learn a few things. Kurt, who could have counted on two hands the number of days he had spent off the farmlands of his home colony, complied easily with the second direction. The first was more difficult: his mouth spent a good portion of the time hanging open speechlessly as they moved through Telfas's central city.

Humans, Bajorans, Cardassians, Ferengi, and dozens of other races traversed Telfas City's crowded streets, blood enemies often passing within arm's reach of each other without incident. Prejudices between the various races were hardly erased, but they seemed to be at least sublimated, acknowledging the universal benefits of keeping Telfas as neutral territory. Deals may not always be accompanied by a friendly handshake, but they were made nonetheless.

The town itself was a conflation of architectures and traditions from across the region, reflecting the diversity of both the mining community and their trading partners. The low domes of a Ferengi market faced the classical lines of the Terran embassy. A Bajoran shrine stood next to a Valerian currency exchange and both fronted an ornate Betazoid conservatory. The result was a street-scape that was sometimes jarringly eclectic, but never uninteresting.

Almost twenty years later, as Bendera led his two companions from the transportation center where they had disembarked the regional shuttle through those streets towards their destination, the same diversity was in evidence. As was the tension lying just under the surface. Bendera caught the less than friendly glances that Torres's clearly Klingon heritage elicited from a couple of passing Cardassians; he also didn't miss Paris's lengthened stride which effectively put the taller man between the engineer and the passing crowd.

Eyes open, mouth closed. His father was a wise man.

Weaving with familiarity through the somewhat haphazardly laid out streets, Bendera brought them at last to a side-street boarding house. As they entered, the ruddy haired man at the desk gave Bendera a wave and a greeting before disappearing to a back room. A moment later, an older, graying woman appeared, and Kurt stepped quickly forward to embrace her in a long hug.

"How are you, Magda?" he asked affectionately. "Looking younger by the day, I see."

Magda swatted at him and giggled, long since won over by the younger man's charms. "We're getting along, as always. Keeping our heads down." She looked up at Bendera's two companions, still lingering by the door. "You brought friends?"

Kurt nodded, waving the other two forward. "Torres, Paris, come meet Magda. She is another expatriate of my home colony and the proprietress of the finest boarding house on Telfas Prime."

Torres gave an awkward greeting, but the pilot came forward to take Magda's offered hand in both of his and drawl, "Very pleased to meet you, ma'am."

"Oh my," Magda cooed, in no hurry to release his hands. "This one will give you a run for your money, Kurt, my dear." And she transferred her indulgent smile to Paris. "Especially with those eyes."

Torres rolled her own dark orbs at Paris's antics, but Bendera just chuckled: as far as he was concerned, Magda deserved any small pleasure she could get. "Is Mitya around?"

"I sent word for him that you arrived. He should be here shortly." Then she looked at Bendera with affectionate concern. "You're not getting into any trouble, are you, Kurt?"

"Magda! – it's me," and Bendera gave the proprietress a saucy wink. She grunted in response.

While they waited for Mitya to arrive, Magda ushered Bendera and his companions to the side room where the borders regularly took their meals. Despite protestations by all three, she insisted on bringing them drinks and refreshments, tittering away at the two young men as she did so.

"So how do you know this guy we're meeting again?" Paris queried once they were settled at a table and Magda had disappeared on other business.

"We were in a bit of a brawl together," Bendera offered in response.

A corner of Paris's mouth quirked. "Did you win or lose?"

"I won; he lost."

Bendera watched in amusement as Torres choked on her drink and even the seemingly unflappable pilot blinked.

"Our contact is someone that you beat in a bar fight?" Torres sputtered.

"We had drinks afterward." And, then, in response to two pairs of raised eyebrows. "I bought the first round."

The engineer muttered something that Bendera suspected was less than complimentary under her breath and glared down at her drink. Paris, on the other hand, looked more amused than Bendera had yet seen him.

"What was the fight about?"

Bendera couldn't stop his grin. "Mitya wasn't fond of Chakotay's 'sense of humor'."

The pilot snorted in appreciation; Torres seemed less impressed.

"I think I might like this Mitya after all." Paris smirked, leaning back in his chair.

Clearly deciding that both of her companions were idiots or worse, B'Elanna pressed angrily, "So you bludgeoned this guy in a bar fight and then became drinking buddies, and now we're supposed to trust him with our lives?"

Seeing that the engineer looked more than ready to walk, Bendera sobered a bit. "Not just for that." He caught and held the young woman's eyes. "You need to understand a bit about Telfan politics, which any of its citizens will be quick to tell you don't exist."

Torres sighed; clearly such subterfuge was not her preferred mode of operation. "I'm listening."

"Telfas enjoys some very unique advantages because of its position along the Cardassian border. It's not in Federation space, so it was never affected by the embargoes against the Cardassians during the war and was free to trade with both sides. And, because of its mineral and ore wealth, it gets a good amount of protection from Starfleet." Bendera paused and glanced at the open door of the room to be sure that they were alone. "But the good citizens of Telfas are all too aware of Cardassia's expansionist tendencies. A nice little mining colony would be a tempting prize should the central government ever become less distracted by other matters. Particularly if Starfleet, on the other hand, is spread thin defending Federation territories."

Torres worked through that. "So it's in their self-interest to keep the Maquis healthy in order to keep the Cardassians busy?" she concluded, her distaste obvious.

Bendera nodded. "But without drawing Cardassian attention – or losing their very generous patronage."

That caused Torres to retort in a near growl, "But then they're probably feeding the Cardassians the very materials that they're using to build their weapons."

"Likely." Bendera acknowledged.

"And this 'Mitya'?"

"Is a cousin of the local magistrate. He makes a convenient unofficial go-between." Knowing that this explanation likely didn't help Torres's growing unease, Kurt gave her his most understanding smile. "He's not a bad guy. Pragmatic and self-interested, yes – hence the lack of love lost between him and the Captain. But not one to sell you out before he first lets you know to your face that he's going to do so. The same could be said for many on Telfas." Bendera looked back over at the door. "Then there are a few true sympathizers about like Magda. She would probably join up with the Maquis herself if she were twenty years younger."

At that moment, a small giant of a man entered the room, making the space feel suddenly very crowded. Bendera rose in greeting. "Mitya! Good to see you, my friend."

Returning the greeting with a meaty handshake and a hearty thump on the shoulder, Mitya then generously filled the remaining chair at the table, eagerly pulling over the fourth mug of ale which Magda had thoughtfully left for him. He eyed the two other occupants of the table with open interest and then gave a friendly nod to each. "Welcome to Telfas Prime. I'm Dmitry – but, Mitya to friends."

"So not to Chakotay?" Paris asked. Bendera heard the barb in what was otherwise a friendly jest as the pilot felt out the other man.

The larger man chuckled. "Captain Chakotay and I have certain...differences in personality that keeps our relationship more...formal." Then he threw a grin over at Bendera. "So he sends Kurt to speak with me instead. Things are friendlier for everyone that way."

"Makes sense to me," Paris answered, nodding. "I understand that it's always good to keep things 'friendly' here on Telfas."

At that, Mitya's eyes narrowed a touch, and Bendera quickly retook the reins of the conversation. Sitting forward and leaning in toward Mitya, he asked quietly, "I assume you know why we are here?"

With one last assessing glance at Paris, Mitya turned his full attention back to Bendera. "To pick up what you left here last time." He took a long drink. "You know what sort of shape she's in though."

"We do," Bendera agreed. "We'll need some time to get her ready to go. And supplies." He gave the larger man a meaningful look, though doubting that much of it penetrated. Reading subtlety was not exactly Mitya's strong point. "Will we be able to have both?"

Mitya sat back, drink in hand. "Supplies we can get you, and at the usual special rate." Bendera nodded his thanks, awaiting the rest. "Time could be harder."

"Cardassians or Starfleet?"

"Both. Though the Cardassians have a better idea of where to look than the 'Fleeters do. Still, if you are here for too long, one or the other will pick up your scent."

Bendera nodded again. "Then we'll have to be quick."

Mitya considered that and then Bendera's two companions, one of whom had yet to utter a word. "One of you must be quite a mechanic then, if Kurt thinks you can get that bird in the air before the Cardies or the 'Fleeters track you down." His voice held a definite edge of speculation.

"Ah, now, Mitya – maybe I've just been studying up?" Bendera offered with mock indignation, resisting the urge to stomp on Paris's foot as the pilot stirred beside him. Another quick change of subject as well as a move to finish this conversation was in order. "Can you get us some transportation between town and our bird?"

Pulling a scrap of paper from his pocket, Mitya passed it across the table. "It's already set up, but you'll need a pilot." Mitya gave Bendera a knowing grin. "I suppose you've been studying up on your flying skills as well?"

"Always looking for ways to improve myself," Bendera agreed, smiling widely.

Mitya just grunted and, finishing his drink with a long swallow, got up to leave. At the door, he turned, filling the frame with his mass. "Oh – and I hope you brought your rain gear." Then he was gone.

The three Maquis exchanged puzzled looks before finishing their own drinks and food and preparing to depart to inspect the prize that had brought them to Telfas Prime.

* * *

She was a beauty of a ship.

Scarred and battered, yes, but the strength and efficiency of her design was evident.

Chakotay and Bendera had hidden her in an abandoned magnesite quarry, counting on residual interference from the mineral to mask her from prying eyes. Where she had come from exactly and how she had gotten there were subjects about which the usually loquacious Bendera remained tight-lipped; though he did peg Chakotay as the one who had piloted and landed her when Paris commented sarcastically on the less than ideal settlement of the ship.

Torres ignored the pilot's conceit; she found herself becoming good at that quickly. Instead she ran her hands across the hull of the ship.

_Her _ship.

_ "I'm sending you to fix up a ship."_

_ "What kind of repairs does it need?"_

_ "Everything. You'll be rebuilding her almost from the ground up."_

_ A pause and then a steady look. _

_ "You can make this one yours, Torres."_

She found the manual release for the hatch and pulled it, allowing the gangway to lower and the stale air of the ship's interior to drift out. B'Elanna breathed it in deeply nonetheless, catching the scent particular to this ship. And something else now heavy in the air around them.

She turned toward the two men who were standing and talking near the borrowed hovercraft which had transported them from Telfas City to the ship. "You two might want to take your conversation inside before you get soaked," she called to them before heading up the gangway.

Paris and Bendera looked back at her in surprise and had managed to take only a couple of steps in her direction before the heavens opened up above them, drenching them before they could complete their now sprint to the hatch.

"So that's what Mitya was talking about," Paris stated somewhat unnecessarily as he and Bendera dripped generously onto the floor of the cargo area into which the hatch opened. "You didn't know about this?" he shot in Bendera's general direction.

The other man shrugged, shaking water from his dark hair. "Hasn't happened before. In fact, I don't remember it ever raining before when I was here. Maybe they have a rainy season?"

"Maybe," Paris snorted back, rubbing his hands vigorously along his arms.

Torres assessed the situation: the temperature had fallen as rapidly as the rains had begun, leaving her two soaked companions not just uncomfortable but in some real danger of hypothermia. Their extra clothing and supplies were still in the hovercraft which was a quick run through freezing rain away. Time to start working on those repairs.

A couple of taps to a nearby console bought them emergency power and lights, but that was about it. "I'll head up to the bridge and see if I can get the environmental controls up. Bendera, could you see about getting that hatch closed up in the meantime? It's not exactly warm in here, but it's getting a whole lot colder out there."

"I'll head up with you," Paris offered. She was about to refuse, but the pilot was visibly shivering and at least the movement would warm him. She nodded.

They moved forward through the ship together, unerringly heading towards the bridge even in the dim emergency lighting. The ship easily outsized Chakotay's current vessel, stretching, Torres estimated, about sixty meters or so in length from the rear hatch where they had entered to the bridge at the bow. Chakotay hadn't been able to provide her with much in the way of specs ahead of time, and she found herself almost deliriously eager to explore the vessel's decks and inner workings. _Engines in the stern, arched around the cargo space; bridge forward; crew quarters likely under the bridge. Weapons would be forward as well... _

She stopped her thoughts there. Officially signed on as a Maquis or no, she wasn't quite ready to think about offensive weapons systems yet.

Reaching the bridge, Torres found a familiar configuration, still used in the runabouts in which she had had occasion to fly during her stint at the Academy. She slid into the seat at the engineering console; Paris, after briefly running his hands over the darkened helm controls, moved to the tactical and ops station.

A few minutes of work won her full lights as main power came back online. Another couple of minutes and a blast of warmth issued from the ship's environmental vents. She heard Paris's heavy sigh of relief.

"You're welcome," she quipped over at him.

"I've got some short-range sensors up as well," the pilot reported back to her. "They should give us a heads up if any company should come to visit." Then he glanced up at the viewscreen which revealed only the ongoing, blinding downpour. "Likely not an immediate concern."

Torres nodded, though admitting to herself that it was a good precaution to take. "Any luck with the comm system?"

Paris entered another couple of commands with more flourish than necessary and cocked an eyebrow at her. "Give it a try, Chief."

_Gods, the man could be irritating. _

She opened a channel down to the cargo bay. "Bendera, can you read me?"

_:Loud and clear. And it's a whole lot warmer down here now – thank you for that. So what's next?:_

B'Elanna paused for a moment as the pilot also gave her a questioning glance.

_Her _ship. And now that they were at that ship, her mission and her lead.

"Okay," she finally said, nodding to herself. "Let's go have a look at those engines."

* * *

B'Elanna Torres in her element was a sight to behold.

And, on this ship, she was very much in her element.

Covered indiscriminately in dust, engine grease and general grime, she climbed through the bowels of the ship's engines, assessing their condition, compiling a list of the repairs needed both in the short and long terms, and shouting directions back to her two assistants.

'Assistant engineer' was not a title to which Tom had ever aspired, but he found himself not minding the in-the-field commission. And not just because of his continuing fascination with the engineering chief.

The ship itself captivated him.

She was truly a thing of beauty, built over a generation before when Starfleet's exploratory focus had been on the interior of stellar systems, mapping out nebulae and assessing the terraforming potential of planets. For such work, pure, straight-in-a-line speed took a back seat to finesse, and attention was given to impulse engines and navigational controls over warp systems.

In the decades since, attention had shifted more towards deep space exploration, the passion for colonization from thirty years earlier tempered by events like the Cardassian War. As a result, such ships had largely been abandoned as relics of their time in the systems that they had once helped to populate, having been determined by the bean-counters at Starfleet Command to be not even worth the cost of retrieval.

For a pilot, discovering one was like stumbling across a buried treasure.

He couldn't wait to get his hands on her in flight.

But in the meantime, he was more than happy to contribute to her rehabilitation in whatever manner he could. Contrary to the image he projected, Tom Paris could be a very patient man.

And speaking of that image...

He found himself having a harder and harder time maintaining the facade that he had chosen for himself. That practiced mask of lazy self-interest was easy enough to keep up around the likes of Seska and even Chakotay, but Tom genuinely liked Bendera, and Torres, well...

Which was all the more reason to keep them at a distance.

_Just fly the ship, Paris._

Except, right now, there was no ship to fly.

The rapid downward spiral of his thoughts was interrupted by Bendera, who descended into the port engineering 'pit' where Tom was working on the navigational array. The ship's engineering section was split into three distinct areas: an upper level housing the warp drive arched over the open cargo area at the ship's belly and acted as a bridge between the two multi-leveled sections on each side of the ship's stern – quickly dubbed 'the pits' – where the impulse drives and navigational systems were found. Tom had been working to assess navigational readiness while Bendera and Torres worked above to survey the status of the warp engines.

"Chief's gonna need you soon," Bendera reported to him, recovering his breath.

Tom stood up from where he had been crouching over some relays, stretching a bit. "Why didn't you just comm me and save yourself a climb?"

Bendera shrugged, giving a slight smile. "She hasn't admitted that she's going to yet." And, at Tom's raised eyebrow, "It's a question of height."

The corner of the pilot's mouth twitched. Working as they were with minimal supplies and without anything like an anti-grav lift, Tom's extra centimeters of both height and reach had been essential on more than a couple of occasions already. A small fact that irritated the engineer to no end.

"So you thought you would save her the need to ask?"

Bendera's eyes flashed with some amusement. "Call it self-preservation. I'm not going to feed that temper if it can be helped."

Tom almost laughed outright. (_When had he last laughed out of actual amusement?_) "You might want to drop the 'Chief' then. I'm pretty sure she's not too fond of the title."

"I know," Bendera acknowledged. "I don't use it when she's within hearing distance." Then he gave the pilot a look that held more than a little curiosity. "Unlike you."

Tom rubbed at the back of his neck, not wanting to get into a conversation about his incessant needling of the engineer. "You know," he deflected the conversation, "you have quite a diplomatic flair for someone in this line of work. How'd you get mixed up with the Maquis anyway?"

Bendera's expression indicated that the pilot's evasive maneuver had only bought him temporary safety, but he answered the question nonetheless. "Usual story: I grew up in a farming colony in what is now the DMZ. Life was never exactly uninteresting, but after the armistice was signed, the Cardassians began to harass us with a new level of impunity. Probably they knew that the Federation would likely overlook a good bit in the name of preserving the greater peace." Something that was as close to bitterness as Paris had yet seen in him passed over Bendera's face, but then he shrugged and continued. "I'm on the older end of a very large family – a 'baker's dozen' as my folks like to say. The younger ones are still kids. My folks would have liked to have stayed, but they couldn't risk the littles."

"They resettled?"

Bendera nodded. "A couple years back." Then he gave Tom a wolfish smile. "I always liked a good fight though. I stuck around hoping to hook up with those who were forming a resistance and found Chakotay."

"In a bar fight?" the pilot guessed, eyebrow raised.

"Pretty much," Bendera agreed.

:_Torres to Paris. Paris, could you come up to the warp drive section? I need your_: a marked pause :_help_: The last word clearly came through gritted teeth.

Tapping a comm-line open on the wall panel, Paris flashed a grin at Bendera and, unable to help himself, responded jauntily, "On my way up, _Chief. _Always happy to lend my assets as needed."

The pilot closed the line before Torres could respond and headed up the ladder, but not before he heard Bendera's heavy sigh and his muttered, "So much for not feeding the temper."


	4. The Val Jean

**The Val Jean**

"Torres, you ready to go?"

"Give me five minutes."

"That's what you said five minutes ago," Bendera reminded her as he emerged into the upper engineering arch to find the half-Klingon hastening between panels, a diagnostic tool in one hand. "We need to head out if we don't want to get caught in the afternoon downpour." For the last two weeks, the daily rains had started a couple of hours after the Telfan midday and then lasted into the night, clearing before dawn. Definitely a rainy season.

"Why don't you and Paris make the run by yourselves?" Torres suggested, not for the first time, barely glancing up from her work. "I have a few things I'd like to get done today."

"I'm sure you do," Bendera agreed, stepping closer to gain her attention. "But I need to meet up with Mitya; do you really want Paris bartering for the supplies we need on his own?" He cocked an eyebrow at her expected snort of derision. "Besides, you need a break. A couple of real meals and a night in a real bed." Catching her eye, he grinned. "Believe me, Magda's hospitality is worth the trip. The _Val Jean_ will survive a day without you."

The last finally succeeded in catching her full attention. "The '_Val Jean_'?"

Bendera shrugged. "What Paris nicknamed her. Something about an old relic being dug up to help a valiant and 'doomed' resistance. Seemed fitting enough."

Torres snorted again and, free hand on her hip, surveyed the engineering section with fond tolerance. "'Relic' is definitely accurate enough." Though, by that point, the '_Val Jean_' was a functional relic. Patched up and still with a long list of repairs needed before she would be ready to go up against the Cardassians, yes, but she could fly.

"Five minutes?" Bendera asked, moving back to the ladder down to the cargo bay.

"Sure," Torres gave in, reluctantly. "Let me lock this down and throw a bag together."

Fifteen minutes later, the engineer met the pilot and Bendera at the hovercraft. The three crammed into the small passenger section of the vessel which was clearly designed to move cargo rather than people – a good thing for their current errand despite the immediate discomfort. Paris launched them up for the hour long trip to Telfas City.

Bendera hadn't been exaggerating when he rated the pilot's skills for Chakotay; even flying the intraplanetary craft, Paris's subtle, sure touch on the controls was obvious. His usually tight, unreadable expression softened while he was at the helm as he relaxed into what was so clearly his first love. The man had 'Fleeter written all over him; Bendera wondered not for the first time how Starfleet had let a pilot of his obvious caliber slip away.

Arriving back at the hangar where they had picked up the hovercraft, Paris gently set the vessel down. A handful of other land crafts as well as stacks of cargo waiting to be loaded were scattered around the otherwise deserted space, and their footsteps echoed off the exposed rafters.

"You two know where you're going?" Bendera asked as they approached the exit.

Torres only nodded curtly, evidently still less than reconciled to spending the day away from her engines and in the company of Paris. The pilot, however, gave Kurt a mock salute. "We've got it covered, boss. Say 'hello' to Mitya for us."

"Right then," and Bendera turned off in search of his Telfan contact.

* * *

As it turned out, he found him at the site of their first, memorable encounter: a dive bar full of local color.

The larger man appeared to be in a rare morose mood. He had a drink in front of him when Kurt entered and the empty glasses on his table indicated that he had already had a couple before that. Spotting Bendera, Mitya waved him over, giving an only slightly slurred greeting.

"I've been checking up on your friends," Mitya announced without preamble once his drink had been refreshed and Bendera had a glass in front of him as well.

"Oh?" Bendera kept his voice noncommittal though he was more than a little curious about what Mitya had discovered. The Telfan network for such information was, as one might expect, rather impressive.

"That little engineer of yours is a nice prize."

Torres's likely reaction to such a statement sprang to mind, and Bendera was immediately grateful that he had not just taken a drink. "I dare you to say that to her face," he chuckled, taking a healthy gulp once the danger had passed, wondering passingly whether the 'little', 'yours' or 'prize' would most infuriate the engineer.

"Not likely with those ridges on her forehead." Mitya grinned less than pleasantly, and Bendera's good humor evaporated: so much for Telfan tolerance and friendliness. "How'd she end up with the likes of you?" the larger man continued, making rapid progress through what Kurt calculated to be his fourth serving in that sitting.

"Her previous employment came to an unexpected end around the time that she met up with the Captain." Bendera offered, hoping the mention of Chakotay would deflect the big man's attention somewhat. It did, and Mitya scowled, offering what sounded like an unflattering description in a tongue with which Bendera was unfamiliar. "He does have his charms, you know, Mitya, even if you are impervious to them."

Mitya's grunt spoke to the fact that he was unconvinced; however, his attention had moved on.

"The other one: Paris." Mitya's eyes narrowed a touch, and he suddenly seemed much less inebriated. "How much do you know about him, Bendera?"

"Not much," Kurt admitted, sitting back in his chair, but listening carefully.

"He's got quite a reputation. Did you know he's a Starfleet admiral's son?" Bendera digested that, finding himself oddly unsurprised. "He followed his old man into the fleet and was supposed to be a captain before thirty, or some such crap. Then, there was a big scandal, and he was run out of the service and ended up out here." Kurt waited a beat, but that, evidently, was all the detail Mitya's network had uncovered. "I'm surprised you trust him, Bendera."

Kurt toyed with his drink as he considered that. As guarded as the pilot was and as clearly as he was playing a part, Paris had never pretended not to have a past. And, he had never sought the trust of any of the Maquis; rather, he had done his best to keep them all at arm's length. Whether in spite of or because of those things, Bendera found himself answering, "I trust him," and knowing it to be true.

Mitya gave him a long look and then snorted. "I hope you're right, my friend. For both our sakes."

"What other news do you have for me, Mitya?" Bendera asked, shifting the conversation again.

"Another Cardassian ship came in yesterday. It's armed, but not a military ship." Mitya signaled the server for another drink and gave the Maquis a look of real concern. "You might want to get your bird in the air soon."

Bendera suspected that the other man wasn't wrong there. "She's just about ready to go. We came in to get some last supplies today."

"You're staying with Magda tonight?"

Kurt nodded.

"Take care who sees you coming and going. Telfas is becoming less friendly than it should be."

* * *

"You know, for a mercenary, you have a lousy sense of money."

The comment caught Paris off-guard as he and the engineer exited the last of the scrap yards, supplies bargained for and sent back to the hangar where the hovercraft was waiting.

"Who said I was a mercenary?" he threw back, more to buy a minute to regain his mental footing than anything else.

"People," Torres responded vaguely, shrugging. _Seska_, Tom guessed. The Bajoran had taken an instant dislike to him which, in fairness, he had done more than his share to encourage. Torres glanced over at him as they walked. "Aren't you getting paid to fly for the Maquis?"

It was the pilot's turn to shrug; it was true enough, though he wasn't exactly in it for the money. "Maybe," he conceded, then added, "I guess Chakotay didn't have time to lure all of us in."

She stopped and swung around at him, practically spitting, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Confrontation on the streets of Telfas City would attract attention quickly, and from all the wrong people. Raising his brows in the direction of a couple of Starfleet officers passing by, Paris gently touched Torres's arm, guiding her back to a walk. "Only that it's clear that Chakotay has gone all out to win you over to the cause – first with that little mission down to Ceres and now giving you your own ship to rebuild." He shot her something between a smirk and a grin. "Kind of an engineer's dream, that."

She bristled and was about to reply when the first drops of rain began to fall.

"Shit."

They both made a mad dash for the nearest doorway which opened into a small tavern. They were quickly forced to one side as a stream of refugees from the downpour pushed in from the street, and Tom took advantage of his superior height to survey the room. The few tables that had been empty a moment before were rapidly filling up. Across the room, he spotted a table full of Starfleet crewmen, apparently off duty but in uniform, enjoying the local ale. Near to them, two Cardassians were conversing under the sudden noise of the crowd. The pilot's eyes narrowed: were those the same Cardassians whom they had passed on the street when they had first arrived on Telfas?

"B'Elanna?" He used her given name intentionally, unable to shake a feeling of wariness. The unusual address drew her attention and she shot a look up at him. He caught and held her eyes, trying to telegraph his concerns while pitching his voice as casual. "It's a bit crowded in here. Feel like taking our chances with the rain?"

Confusion and not a small amount of anger made way for understanding in her expression. "Sure...Tom. At least we have dry clothes waiting this time."

They pushed their way out against the tide of the crowd. Just before they reached the door, Tom looked back and saw the Cardassians watching them. _Fuck. _Well, hopefully neither he nor B'Elanna – _Torres, _he corrected himself._ No one is going to overhear what you are thinking, Paris_ – were interesting enough to get drenched for.

They were a scant four hundred meters from Magda's boarding house, and the sprint through the rain really wasn't that bad with the knowledge that a change of clothes, warm rooms and good food awaited them. And 'sprint' was the right word.

"Damn, you're fast, Torres," Tom commented somewhat breathlessly when they arrived at Magda's covered doorway. In response, the engineer threw him a wicked grin that took care of whatever breath he had left.

"You flyboys just spend too much time sitting at a helm," she returned, having no problem with her own breathing and having clearly enjoyed their little dash. "I'm going in to change; I'll see you at dinner." And, with that, she turned into the boarding house without looking back and so, once again, without noticing the eyes trailing after her.

Despite their change of clothes, Magda clucked over their still damp hair when they arrived at dinner and chided them for being out in the rain without proper gear. Then, she set down a small feast in front of them, accompanied by generously sized tumblers of the local ale. "To warm you up," she explained, continuing to cluck and fuss at Tom.

Bendera had reportedly been in earlier after his meeting with Mitya and then had headed back out to follow up on a lead about some possible extra supplies - Magda, while telling Paris and Torres this, made a point of emphasizing that _he_ had brought rain gear with him. The couple of other boarders that Magda was housing were eating elsewhere that evening, leaving the two Maquis alone in the dining room.

Torres's mood was apparently still benefiting from the run through the rain and now from the tempting meal set in front of them. Breaking off a piece of crusty, still warm bread, she took a small bite as she eyed Paris. "You know, it isn't that much different from what Starfleet does."

"Huh?" Tom's mind stumbled to catch up with the non sequitur.

"Chakotay's recruiting techniques," the engineer clarified. "Starfleet is just as manipulative with their promises: 'seek out new life and new civilizations'," her tone mocked the slogan.

"But Starfleet isn't recruiting people into a war," the pilot pointed out.

"Aren't they?" B'Elanna – _Torres_ – raised an eyebrow. "For all their talk of exploration, Starfleet is a dangerous place to be these days."

He looked up sharply at that, but she was calmly continuing to nibble through the piece of bread. Then he put her words together. "You were in Starfleet?" he asked, unable to keep the incredulous note out of his voice.

"Not exactly. I was at the Academy for a couple of years." She grimaced. "The reality didn't quite match up to the recruitment speech." Then she raised a curious eyebrow at him. "Not all of us were born into Starfleet's royalty."

Shit. So she did know; but how much?

"I take it my reputation precedes me?" he tried for lightness.

She shrugged, now intent on her bread. "You finished up at the Academy the semester before I came in." She looked back up at him with a slight smirk. "Let's just say you still had quite a fan base."

It had evaporated soon enough... He did a quick calculation. If she had only stayed two years, she wouldn't necessarily know the rest.

"Why did you leave?" he asked, attempting to redirect the conversation back to her.

"Mutual differences." And then, "Why did you?"

So much for redirection.

It wasn't that he hadn't been asked the question dozens of times before nor that he didn't have a full arsenal of smart-ass answers. Smart-ass answers that issued easily from the mouth of a drunk and a mercenary.

Too bad that wasn't the guy who had sat down to dinner that evening.

When no quick answer came, Torres looked up at him and then froze at whatever she saw in his expression.

"Did you make it in before the rain?"

Coming up behind him, Bendera pulled a chair up to the table and began to help himself to a plate of food. Tom blinked once and then turned to the dark-haired man. "Not quite, but we recovered quickly."

Bendera chuckled. "Magda insisted I bring rain gear with me. Probably a good thing too." Then, seeming to catch some of the tension at the table, he paused with a forkful of food on the way to his mouth. "Everything okay here?"

"Yeah." Tom took a bite of his own food. "Yeah, everything is fine. How was Mitya?"

Conversation during the rest of the meal consisted of a debriefing on the day's activity. Once they had finished eating, Torres excused herself, saying she wanted to go over the list of supplies they had been able to obtain to plan what further repairs they would make before taking the _Val Jean_ into the Badlands.

After she left, Tom turned to Bendera, "You told her the nickname?"

Bendera shrugged. "I slipped on it. She liked it, by the way."

Paris took a long drink to cover his reaction: that small piece of news pleased him much more than it should.

* * *

_ "How's the weather out there, Velik?"_

_ "Is that cutting it too close, Tom?"_

_ "By my readings, we can expect another solar flare within the hour."_

_ "That's why they sent us Tom. He's a master at playing with fire."_

_ "Sir, the radiation is rendering our navigational sensors useless."_

_ "Ladies and gentleman, get yourselves a good seat."_

_ "Tom!"_

He woke with a start, sitting up and swinging an arm at the threat that his adrenaline-ridden brain insisted was there. Fortunately, Bendera either had good instincts or experience and had taken a long step back. When his arm encountered no resistance, Tom slumped back down, taking stock of his surroundings.

Magda's boarding house. The room that he and Bendera were sharing. Far away from Caldik Prime.

Not far enough. Never far enough.

"Fuck," he muttered, sitting back up and swinging his feet around to the floor. Elbows on his knees, he rubbed his palms against his eyes, willing the images behind them to retreat back into the recesses of his mind, knowing they wouldn't, at least for that night. "I'm sorry," he added, glancing up at the other man.

Bendera had walked over to the sink and returned with a towel doused with cold water. He handed it to Tom as he sat down on the second bed. "A shuttle crash?" he ventured. At Tom's questioning look, he added, "You did a lot of talking before I was able to wake you."

Tom nodded. In many ways, that made it simpler. "Yeah, it was a shuttle."

"You were the pilot?"

He nodded again. "And the only survivor."

"Shit." The obscenity was uttered with sympathy – undeserved sympathy, as far as Tom was concerned. "Is that why you and Starfleet parted ways?"

"Yes and no," the pilot returned.

They had brought him the incident report while he was still in the Caldik medical facility, not yet stable enough to be moved. He had thumbed it on and then stared at the near blank screen. Given the state of the shuttle, retrieving any hard data on what had gone wrong had been nearly impossible. The investigators were counting on Lieutenant Thomas Eugene Paris to be able to fill in the blanks.

The irregularities in the shuttle's flight plan and departure time had been pulled from the _Exeter_'s logs – but nothing had been traced back to the shuttle's helm.

He had constructed a new storyline because he wanted it to be true: he wanted to believe, if only for a minute, that he had not killed three fine, talented officers who should have had their whole lives ahead of them. That the spiral of increasingly risky decisions starting with the alterations in the flight plan had never happened. That, if he looked in a mirror, he might somehow, still, recognize himself.

He'd always meant to delete it and start again with the truth. And, yet somehow, in the end, it had been easier to just put his thumbprint to it and turn it in. What the hell did it matter anyway? The dead were still dead.

It wasn't until a month later, back on Earth and completing his recovery in his parents' home, that he had heard about the maelstrom surrounding those still unexplained flight plan irregularities. And the names that were floating around it: Perkins, Wilkerson, Velik. Anyone but Tom Paris who had survived, signed off on the IR, and happened to be recuperating in the home of one Admiral Owen Paris.

After two more nightmare-ridden nights, Tom had sat down at the antique wooden desk in his childhood bedroom and recorded an amended version of the incident report, this one including everything from his changes to the flight plan to the final piloting error that had resulted in the shuttle's fatal impact on the surface of Caldik Prime. Then, knowing that doing so would effectively ensure his exile from the only life he'd ever known, Tom had quickly and ruthlessly hit 'send'.

"Fuck." Tom stood, pulling on the couple items of clothing he had shed before climbing into bed. He looked over at Bendera. "No chance of any more sleep for me."

Understanding flashed across the other man's expression and he reached for the rain poncho Magda had given to him earlier in the afternoon, tossing it to the pilot. "Take this, then."

Catching the poncho, Tom gave a nod of thanks before heading out through the door.

The downpour had tapered off considerably and, despite the late hour, there was a fair amount of traffic on the streets. It didn't take long to find his way back to the small tavern that he and B'Elanna had ducked into earlier that day. He would be lying if he were to say that he was entirely comfortable with how quickly he turned in that direction.

He needed a drink.

Not that alcohol had ever brought him any real relief. The nightmares, the voices, the faces – they all caught up with him eventually. But it did, for as long as it lasted, dull his senses. And he had found it a wonderfully effective means of keeping others at arm's length. Or further.

The crowd from immediately after the rains started had dispersed, but the tavern remained full, body heat from the occupants and humidity from the rain heavy in the air. Tom shrugged off his poncho and headed for the bar, only then noticing out of the corner of his eye that the two Cardassians from earlier in the day were still there. Or had returned. And they had gained some friends.

Remembering Mitya's report of the arrival of the armed Cardassian ship, the pilot immediately went to red alert. Despite the heated room, he shrugged the damp poncho back on – not much of a disguise but he could hope that all humans looked more or less the same to the Cardassians and the change of outfit might give him a slight edge. Having gained the bartender's attention, he ordered a drink and then slunk back into the crowd, grateful for the shadows of the dimly lit room. Slowly, he edged closer to the table where the Cardassians sat, reaching into his pocket to thumb on the universal translator function of the communicator resting there.

His searching hand found only lint and the change from his drink.

_Shit. _Eighteen months of civilian life, and he still hadn't reliably gotten into the habit of pocketing his communicator before heading out.

Time to reassess the situation. The Cardassians continued their conversation in their native tongue, which might as well have been gibberish to Tom without the aid of a UT; he was out of contact with Bendera and Torres. He needed to head back to the boarding house.

As he turned to leave, he caught two words of the conversation which required neither a translator nor a knowledge of Cardassian to understand: evidently, both '_Klingon'_ and '_Maquis' _were loaned words in the Cardassian language.

Cursing himself liberally for forgetting the communicator, he slid into a seat at a table that had opened up along a shadowed wall near the corner where the Cardassians sat, slowly nursing the drink in his hands. Within a half-hour, the Cardassians rose as a group and headed for the exit. Abandoning his still unfinished drink, Tom followed a few steps behind.

Keeping his eyes on the Cardassians ahead, he stumbled into a young Starfleet ensign who was just rising from his own table. Steadying himself with one hand against the young man's back, Paris offered a quick, "Sorry about that, captain. Must have underestimated the local brew," before quickly moving to exit the bar before the Cardassians turned a corner.


	5. once on the Cardassian border

"…**once on the Cardassian Border"**

"The Cardassians are looking for you."

She blinked up at the giant of a man. Recently roused from sleep, her brain was slow to catch up. Focusing her attention with effort, she asked, "Do they know about the ship?"

They were in Bendera's room and the dark-haired man was leaning against the wall while Mitya sat on one of the beds, filling, as always, the small space. "Not the ship. You."

"Me?" she repeated in confusion.

"According to my source, the Cardassians who came in yesterday brought with them a description of a half-Klingon, half-human engineer who was attached to a trade vessel that was appropriated by Cardassian forces before it was 'attacked by Maquis pirates'." She glowered as Mitya eyed her forehead significantly. "Human-Klingon mix. Not many of those around."

Remembering her last all too close encounter with a Cardassian, Torres felt a shiver run down her spine as she heard Bendera's muttered curse. "We thought we got to them before they had the chance to send any transmissions." He gave the engineer an apologetic look. "Chakotay would never had risked sending you here otherwise."

She shook her head. "Neither of you could have known." Then, moving to more practical matters, "So what do we do now?"

"Leave," Bendera replied simply. "We get back to the _Val Jean_ and get off this rock. You said she's ready to fly, right?"

B'Elanna nodded. "She should be if..." and then she trailed off, her mind finally registering the absence of the ship's prospective pilot from the room. "Where's Paris?"

"He went out," Bendera responded vaguely, pulling out his communicator. "Needed to clear his head."

"He went out in the rain?" Torres asked incredulously before Mitya interrupted with some smugness, "My man who overheard the Cardassians saw your pilot as well. Said he looked like he had had quite a bit to drink – he was stumbling around the place." Mitya's satisfaction at delivering that piece of news was all too obvious.

"He went out to a bar?" B'Elanna let scorn have free rein in her voice, masking a stab of surprise and disappointment. "We're in town for one night and the pig needs to go get himself drunk?" She wasn't sure why she was surprised. The news simply confirmed everything she knew of the pilot's reputation, both from the Academy and more recently from Seska. Paris was a self-absorbed playboy and a drunk. She shouldn't have expected anything else.

Except that she had, idiot that she was.

Bendera seemed on the verge of responding, but then simply shrugged. "We'll comm him and get him back over here and then we'll head out. He should be sober enough by the time we get back to the _Val Jean_." Then he tried a grin and some lightness: "And despite Mitya's lack of faith, I can pilot a hovercraft if necessary." With that he thumbed on the communicator to hail Paris.

The only response was a distinctly familiar buzzing from the other side of the room.

B'Elanna covered the distance in two strides and pulled the pilot's communicator from his bag. Eyebrows raised, she tossed it over to Bendera.

Surprisingly, it was Mitya who broke the silence. "I'll send my man back out after him. Neither of you two should be wandering around the streets."

Bendera nodded his thanks. "Have him meet us at the hangar." Mitya nodded in return before rising and heading out the door, clapping Bendera briefly on the shoulder as he did so. Once he was gone, Bendera turned to B'Elanna. "I need to check in with Magda and make sure she knows there may be unfriendly sorts looking for us. You head out for the hovercraft and start getting our supplies loaded up. Paris and I will meet you there."

"Right," B'Elanna acknowledged and then, as an afterthought, shouldered the pilot's bag before stopping in her room to pick up her own.

Not bothering to grab rain gear, she headed out into the night. The rains had slowed to a mere drizzle, though the streets were still slick. She made her way quickly back to the hangar where the hovercraft was waiting, grateful that foot traffic away from the town center seemed light.

Turning the last corner at a near run, she lost her footing and almost skidded into a group of Cardassians.

* * *

The hangar was nearly dark when Bendera arrived. He moved toward a light near where they had left the hovercraft, hoping that Torres had made good progress in loading up the supplies and that Mitya's man would send Paris their way soon.

As he approached and was about to call out, a heavy hand landed on his shoulder and another reached around to cover his mouth.

"Bendera, it's me." the pilot's voice whispered in his ear as the hand on his mouth fell away. He turned to see Paris with a finger to his lips. The taller man motioned for Bendera to follow him as he sidled around the hull of a nearby craft, bringing their hovercraft into view. Nearby stood four Cardassians. Torres was slumped on the floor, unconscious.

"What happened?" Kurt whispered.

Paris looked grim. "I ran into the Cardassians in a bar in town and overheard enough of their conversation to be worried. I followed them when they left, trailing a block or so behind." His expression tightened. "Too far to stop that," and he indicated the prone engineer.

"Did they stun her?" Bendera asked, not wanting to consider the alternative.

The pilot nodded. "And dragged her in here. Presumably, they wanted to check out what supplies we were gathering." Bendera frowned. The fact that the Cardassians knew the location of the hovercraft suggested that they had more intel on them than Mitya had been aware. But that wasn't the immediate concern.

"Any bright ideas on how to get her – and our hovercraft – out of there?"

"Bright? Probably not. Ideas?" Paris looked over at Kurt. "I've been working on that while hoping that you'd come along to even up the odds a bit before their friends join them." Bendera gave him a look of dismay, and the pilot nodded. "Two more peeled off while I was following them."

"Hell," Bendera spat out. Reaching into the top of his boot, he pulled out the small weapon that was hidden there. "So what is the not-so-bright idea?"

Paris motioned up towards a catwalk in the open rafters. "If I create a small diversion, you think you could get up there? Quickly?"

Bendera eyed the path for a moment before nodding. "Sure. But then what do I do?" He indicated his weapon. "This works fine in tight situations but isn't much use at any distance."

The pilot reached into his pocket. "Use this," he said, handing over what was clearly a Starfleet issue phaser.

Kurt's brows climbed to his hairline. "Do I even want to know?"

Paris shook his head. "Likely not. Let's just say that there is a young Starfleet ensign who will have some explaining to do to his security chief." His voice was not without sympathy.

"So, you'll create a diversion while I gain some high ground and then hopefully take them out before they end up shooting both of us?" Bendera spelled out their plan with little enthusiasm.

Paris shrugged. "I'm open to suggestions."

"Wish I had some," Kurt muttered. He passed his own weapon over to the pilot for what little good it might do. "Okay, if we are going to do this, let's do it before their friends arrive."

Tom watched as Bendera moved off towards an access ladder on a nearby wall, taking care to stay in shadows. Then, the pilot began to edge silently towards the other end of the hangar, mulling over his own next move.

Offering himself as a diversion was all very well and good, but coming up with something that would hold the Cardassians' attention for more than a few seconds without getting him shot would be an interesting feat of ingenuity.

Or perhaps best to keep it simple and classic.

_Right then._ Scanning the nearby area, he located a smallish – and he hoped light – storage container. After checking Bendera's progress, Tom kicked the container, sending it spinning in the direction of the Cardassians, adding a slurred obscenity for good measure as he did so. The Cardassians immediately turned in the direction of the container and the pilot, their weapons drawn and their backs now to the catwalk towards which Bendera was steadily moving.

Get their attention. Check.

Deciding that it would likely be a good move to reveal himself before the Cardassians became too twitchy, Tom stumbled out of the shadows. He made a show of reaching after the container before taking notice of the four large Cardassians with energy weapons pointed at him.

"Oh, shit," he sputtered, raising his hands defensively and taking an unsteady step backward. "My apologies, gentlemen – I had no idea this hangar was occupied."

"Who are you, human?" spat out the Cardassian nearest to him – in Standard now and with obvious disgust. "And what is your business here?"

"Marseilles is my name," Tom offered, swaying for effect. He caught sight of Bendera in the background nearing his position on the catwalk. "I was hired to fly one of these crafts out to the mines tomorrow. Since I found myself a little short on, um, funds for a room, I thought I'd arrive on the job a little early, if you understand what I mean."

Matching sneers appeared on the faces of three of the four Cardassians, and they began to relax their weapons. The last looked at Tom with sudden suspicion and budding recognition. _Hell... _

"A pilot, you said?" questioned the fourth Cardassian, his weapon still very much at the ready. "And who, exactly, did you say you were flying for?"

Fortunately, Bendera chose that moment to open fire.

Kurt's first two shots took out a pair of the Cardassians, including the one who had kept his weapon trained on Paris, before they had a chance to react. His third narrowly missed but, by that point, the two remaining Cardassians were ducking for cover, as was the pilot. Since the return fire of the Cardassians was focused on the immediate threat that Bendera posed, Tom began to move towards one of their fallen compatriots and the weapon still in his hand.

Just as he was making a dive for the weapon, an energy pulse shot over his head and he heard a shout in Cardassian from behind him. Rolling over on the floor with weapon now in hand, he saw that the cavalry had indeed arrived and two more Cardassians had joined the fray. Hoping that his newly acquired weapon was set to stun while at the same time wondering why he still cared, he sent off two shots in the newcomers' direction, one of which hit home. Scrambling behind the hovercraft, he sighted the remaining Cardassian even as he heard a nearby cry indicating that another of Bendera's shots had found its target.

Two on two, and everyone equally armed. At least they were down to even odds.

He spared a quick glance over to where Torres still lay unconscious on the floor, checking that she was well out of any line of fire. Then he turned his full attention to the Cardassian who had taken cover behind the crates of supplies that had been waiting to be loaded onto their hovercraft. His opponent had sighted him as well, he knew, but neither of them had a clear shot and neither was willing to waste weapons energy on ineffectual fire.

_Think, Paris_.

One more in what seemed to be an on-going series of poorly conceived ideas rose to mind. Grimacing, Tom scanned the storage containers, looking for a particular, familiar configuration. Finding it, he pulled out Bendera's weapon, hoping its lower power would puncture the container without incinerating it, and fired, following his shot as he did so.

The energy blast had the combined effect of weakening the structural integrity of the container and heating the liquid inside (hydrochloric acid – B'Elanna's weapon of choice for attacking thirty years of accumulated engine grime) to a boil. The container exploded with impressive effect, spraying its corrosive contents over the slow to respond Cardassian.

Before his opponent had a chance to recover, Tom got off the one quick shot he needed.

Five down; one to go.

Turning to the remaining enemy, Tom fired a couple of shots in his direction. He had no clear line of sight and his shots glanced harmlessly off of the far walls, but the sudden cross-fire was enough to flush out the Cardassian and a careful shot by Bendera ended the battle.

Once the final Cardassian fell, Tom didn't waste a beat in sprinting over to the prone engineer. Gently, he turned her head and felt for her pulse even as he was relieved to see her chest steadily rising and falling with breath. He heard Bendera clambering down from the catwalk, then calling, "Is she okay?"

"As far as I can tell," Tom called back, working loose the bonds that the Cardassians had tied around her wrists and ankles. He winced and uttered some choice words on seeing that they had bitten deeply into the engineer's skin. "I'd give a lot for a medical tricorder right now though."

"Ask and you shall receive," Bendera quipped, moving over to the stack of supplies while carefully avoiding the still steaming acid and opening one of the containers. Pulling out a Starfleet med kit, he brought it over to Tom.

Despite his eagerness for the tools inside, the pilot looked at the kit with slight hesitation. "Do I even want to know?"

"Probably not," Bendera assured him. "You know how to use that stuff?"

"Somewhat," Tom answered, pulling open the kit and then running the tricorder over the engineer. "My big sister is in Starfleet medical. I used to bug her until she'd show me how to use the instruments. I actually ended up taking a couple courses in biochemistry while I was at the Academy, but somehow that wasn't as fun as playing around with Kath's med kit." _Gods, that seemed like a lifetime ago – or two._ Looking over the readings, he glanced back at Bendera. "She'll be fine, I think. The stun should wear off in an hour or so. We might be able to give her a stimulant before then, but I'd rather not without knowing what I'm doing."

Bendera nodded, clearly relieved. "All right. Let's get these supplies loaded up and get out of here." He looked down at Torres. "And let's hope she's awake by the time we get back to the _Val Jean. _We sure as hell aren't going to be able to get that ship in the air without her help."

Pulling off the poncho that he was still wearing and folding it tightly, Tom tucked it carefully beneath the half-Klingon's head before moving to help Kurt with the supplies.

Ten minutes later they were in the air. Early dawn was beginning to lighten the now cloudless skies, and, glancing over at his companion, Bendera noticed that there was no relaxing of the man's expression as he flew this time; rather, the pilot seemed to be steadily withdrawing further into himself. Kurt frowned and began to say something before thinking the better of it. Forty minutes of adrenaline-fueled flying later, they touched down next to the _Val Jean_. Releasing a long breath and his unconscious hold on the armrests of the co-pilot seat, Bendera looked back at the now stirring engineer in the passenger seat behind him. "I almost envy her missing that."

"Missing what?" B'Elanna murmured, slowly coming to. Then her eyes opened wide and she sat upright. "The Cardassians! What...?"

Bendera turned fully in his seat now, laying a calming hand on the engineer's arm. "You ran into them in the street, and they stunned you. We were able to take care of them for the moment and get you out, but it's only a matter of time before they or their friends track us down. We need to get the _Val Jean_ out of here."

She nodded, taking in the essentials. "Right. And thanks," she added quietly. Bendera just nodded in reply. "I'll see about getting the engines prepped." Then she shot a look at the back of Paris's head, and Bendera realized the pilot hadn't turned throughout their exchange. "Nice of our pilot to drag himself back from the bars to fly the ship."

Bendera opened his mouth to reply in the pilot's defense, but Paris cut him off, twisting around to the engineer with a knowing smirk. "Told you I'm always willing to lend my assets when necessary, Chief."

The engineer favored the pilot with one look of utter disgust and spat out, "Pig!" before jumping out of the hovercraft and striding purposely toward the _Val Jean_.

Kurt stared after her for a moment before looking back at Tom whose smirk had faded to that all-too-familiar, unreadable mask. "What the hell was that?" he asked, in honest confusion.

"What was what?"

Bendera eyed the younger man for a long moment. "You know, Paris, for all her temper, she's awfully vulnerable. She could use a friend."

Paris was looking forward now, refusing to meet Kurt's eyes. The pilot's expression, if anything, had tightened even further. "I know. That's why she should stay away from me," Paris finally answered quietly, matter-of-factly. "I'm not exactly a good luck charm." Then, "Let's get the supplies on the ship and get out of here," he added, still avoiding Bendera's gaze as he climbed out the craft and began to unload the crates.

Still processing what had just occurred, Bendera slowly shook his head before joining the pilot in shifting the supplies to the _Val Jean_. Once the task was complete, Paris made his way forward to the bridge, while Bendera clambered up to join B'Elanna in engineering.

"How's she looking?"

Torres glanced up for a moment in acknowledgment before turning back to the console where she was at work. "Warp engines are ready to go; impulse engines should be fine, though they'll need monitoring. It's the thrusters that worry me the most. You and Chakotay did them no favors flying her over here in the condition that she was in, and I've only been able to give them a basic maintenance check."

Before Bendera could respond, Paris's voice came over the comm line.

:_Looks like we've got some company headed our way. Atmospheric vessels only, but I doubt they're friendly. How close are we to being able to take off?_:

A decidedly Klingon curse escaped from the engineer. "How far are they out?"

:_Twenty kilometers and closing fast_:

Torres chewed her lower lip, clearly making some calculations. "Give us a minute to get down to manually monitor the thrusters and be ready to launch on my mark." Bendera, standing next to her, heard the added mutter, "Not that we are going to be able to do much if they stall out."

:_Will do. Paris out_:

With a quick nod, Bendera joined the engineer in climbing down to the lower pit. "Monitor the energy outputs," Torres ordered as she transferred engineering control to the main thruster console. "Let me know if there are any unexpected fluctuations once we are in flight."

"Right," Bendera responded, moving to an auxiliary console.

"I'm pulling some additional power from the deflector grid to give the thrusters a kick start. Hopefully it will be enough."

A minute later, Torres opened the comm line.

"Okay, Paris, try it now." She stilled in her frantic work, staring at the thruster indicator as if her will alone could ensure its cooperation.

:_Commencing take-off_: the pilot reported.

The indicator sprang to life even as they felt the vibrations through the deck plates. And the _Val Jean_ lifted into the skies of Telfas Prime.


	6. Stardate 47413

**Stardate 47413**

_June, 2370_

She imagines she should feel proud, or even celebratory, but it is mostly relief that floods through the engineer as the now officially designated _Val Jean_ clears the atmosphere of Alpha 441 and heads into open space. Both she and the ship have spent far too many weeks grounded on the planetoid as she and her team worked to ensure that the vessel would be ready to meet the Cardassians.

From below in the cargo bay, she hears the sounds of those who are feeling celebratory, though possibly simply for the added space that their new ship affords. Compared to the _Liberty_, even the close proportions of the _Val Jean _are a marked improvement.

The '_Val Jean', _she reflects ruefully: the name has stuck around longer than the man who bestowed it. Paris disappeared almost a month before, sent out alone in a scout ship to bring help to the limping _Liberty _and not returning. Reports from the sector where he had been headed indicated that Starfleet ships were in the vicinity. Seska pounced on the news, declaring to anyone who would listen that "the Admiral's brat ran back home". Chakotay turned quiet and dangerous and barked orders for all assets with which Paris was familiar to be moved – including the _Val Jean._

"Hey there," Bendera's voice calls from behind her. She is sitting on the edge of the starboard pit, surveying the impulse engines, now fully restored to their former glory. She turns and gives a rare smile to the dark-haired man as he comes to sit beside her, handing her one of the two glasses of whatever drink someone – likely Chell or one of the other Bolians – has procured by fair means or foul for the gathering below. "How's our ship doing?"

"As well as can be expected for the old relic that she is," Torres replies, patting the deck plating. "She'll do her job."

Bendera chuckles. "The _Val Jean_," he says with satisfaction. "She'll give the Cardassians a run for their money."

Torres looks over at him with curiosity. "You never told Chakotay where – or whom – the name came from, did you?"

Kurt shakes his head. "Didn't think he needed to know. Did you?"

"No," she admits. Then, "Kurt, what Seska says...about Paris running back to Starfleet..." She pauses, unsure how to finish the question.

"Seska says a lot of things," Bendera returns quietly.

"The Captain seems to believe it's true," she counters.

Bendera considers that and then chooses his words carefully. "The Captain is a good man and a great leader in many, many ways. If it weren't for him and a few others like him, this fight would have been over months ago." He looks over at her. "But he had a blind spot where Paris was concerned from the beginning."

B'Elanna frowns, and then tries for the straight-forward question. "So you don't think he ran back to Starfleet?"

Remembering the pilot's cold sweat when he woke from his nightmare and the raw pain of the few words with which he told his story, Bendera shakes his head. "No. I don't think he would go back to Starfleet." And then he adds, "I don't think there was anything left for him there."

"Hmm," is her only response as she seems to drift into her own thoughts.

Frowning and wanting to pull her back, Kurt lightly clinks his glass against hers. She looks back over at him in surprise. "To the _Val Jean_?" he suggests, raising his glass to his lips.

She surveys the engines, rebuilt, clean, functional – _hers_. And then agrees: "To the _Val Jean._"


End file.
